Radio transmitters are known to include a modulator, frequency up-converter, and a power amplifier to drive an antenna. While the basic structure of a radio transmitter is common over various applications, the particular construction of the elements of a radio transmitter is application dependent. For example, an IEEE 802.11a compliant radio transmitter includes a modulator that modulates incoming data utilizing binary phase shift keying (BPSK), quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK), 16 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) or 64 QAM in an orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) manner to produce modulated data. The frequency up-converter converts the base-band modulated data directly, or through an intermediate frequency stage, to a radio frequency signal having a frequency band in the 5-gigahertz range.
The power amplifier is designed to accurately amplify RF signals and to drive an antenna. An RF signal typically includes peaks that occur infrequently and has an average value that is significantly less than the peak. Note that for sinusoidal based signals, the average value is generally measured as an rms value. For example, an IEEE 802.11a compliant RF signal has a peak occurring every 50,000–100,000 symbols, but the average value is much less, yielding a significant peak-to-average ratio (e.g., 10–20 dB). Despite the infrequency of the peaks that are significantly greater than average values, a power amplifier must be designed to accurately accommodate the peak conditions as if they were frequent events. For instance, to support an average power transmission of 200 milliwatts (mW), with a peak-to-average ratio of 15 dB, the power amplifier should be a 6.3 Watt amplifier. As such, the power amplifier is generally running much below its capabilities, but is designed to handle the peak conditions. Aggressive system design can run the power amplifier at lower power so that peaks are distorted. This will increase the system error rate or require that the remainder of the system be higher performance, so that the total system performance is acceptable.
By having to design power amplifiers to handle signals with a large peak-to-average ratio, the average operating point must be a sufficient distance from the 1 dB compression point, which is approximately the point where the power amplifier loses linearity. Such power amplifiers consume more power than power amplifiers that have average operating points closer to the 1 dB compression point, are typically more expensive to construct, especially on integrated circuits, and/or have less range of operation.
Therefore, a need exists for improved power amplification of RF signals to reduce cost, to reduce power consumption, and/or to increase range of operation such that a lower power consuming transmitter may be obtained for various wireless communication standards including IEEE 802.11a.